The Silk Betrayal
by LolaRedMuse
Summary: The rest... is history.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Multi. Premeditated yet quite unexpected. _

_This plot has been wandering around my mind for quite a while now but I had no intention of writing this fic just yet and even when I thought about it, I always envisioned it as a pretty long one shot to be. Well… nope._

_This is my personal take on what I think happened back then and that eventually led them to where they ended up. Just so you know, it's back and forth all along but I rather have you figure out how I played the 'flexible-non linear' timeline in this story, so I'm not gonna explain it any further. Please read and find out by yourselves. __Here you are. Let's have it. _

Disclaimer: I'm kinda sick and tired of saying this: NOT MINE!

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_The Silk Betrayal_

"No, that's not true."

"I think you are not in the position of telling me what is true or not anymore."

"I want a divorce." She sounds determined, very much so, but there are those tears again; she can't seem to fight them back. She can't stop them.

He looks at her as if she was a complete stranger. She can see him wondering who the hell is that woman standing in front of him? She can see that bracing question as clear as the offensive sunny day outside, all over his disgusted face. She feels slapped.

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He runs his hands through her hair while she sleeps peacefully next to him. Her bare back and her head resting on the pillow is all he can see. The rest of her figure is strategically covered by a white silk sheet.

His mind replays the images from the previous evening. The moans, the sweat, the gasping for air and more.

He is fully aware of the marks she must have left in his back. The pain, which hurt so good, has worn off by now, but he still remembers the burning trace that her nails left on his skin, the exact moment when she did so and what she said while doing it. She did not call out his name. But he is not exactly sure of what he heard. He thinks he heard something that he has seen coming for a while now. But he is not positive. He also remembers other things she did. He decided to keep all of what he now knows or at least suspects, to himself. He has a lot to lose. Or, has he already lost it all? He is not even sure if he really wants to know the answer to that question.


	2. Chapter 2

She, whoever she is, lights a cigarette and offers him one. She asks him if he would like to share hers, he silently declines both times.

She turns for a second to put the pack of cigarettes back inside her purse, which is unceremoniously resting on top of the night stand. As she does so, the white silk sheet that's precariously covering her young yet fake breast, slides down her skin to expose them.

He sees that but chooses to ignore it completely. He gets ups, flashing some skin of his own on his way to the bathroom. He uses the toilet and washes his face, careful to avoid looking at his own reflection in the mirror and exits the small en-suite bathroom exactly twenty eight seconds later. He picks his scattered clothes from the floor one by one. Not a word, not a look, nothing.

She watches him in silence. Of course he knows she's wondering what the hell is he doing? Where the hell does he think he is going? Just like that… after fucking her senseless and making her scream the place down. Of course he doesn't give a shit about all that, but he does know.

She thinks the silence in the room is oppressing and extremely uncomfortable. That awkwardness was the last thing she thought she was going to get at the end of such an intense, two hour and a half hour long encounter.

While she tries to figure his sudden mood swing out, she mildly caresses the idea of asking him if the cat got his tongue. She remains in silence, though.

His mechanic moves and the blank look on his face, sort of scare her. She has to actually move around to try and get a glimpse of his features, she goes out of her way to do so but he doesn't even bother in turning to her, he faces the closet, then the wall, then the door, then the wall again. It's like he's not even there anymore. It's like she is not even there anymore, as far as he is concerned.

He just puts his clothes back on and realizes that some of the buttons in his shirt are missing, he disregards this realization as much as he disregards her presence in the room. As he absently finishes getting dressed, he muses on her name. '_Was it Nat… what the hell was her name after all?_ _Well, whatever…' _

Once again he will leave his new prey without saying goodbye or calling her by her name. He will walk out on her and he won't look back. Neither will he be sorry about it. He will have no regrets whatsoever. But then, who said he was a fucking gentleman? Certainly not him.


	3. Chapter 3

"Mind if I join you?"

"Of course not, love. Please do."

The unsaid words reign supreme between them and all around them. They float adrift in the air they breathe. They go in and out of them in a silent and invisible halo that engulfs it all. That silence they create and keep with such dedication is the language they share. Only they can communicate in that language where words are superfluous. Not always, but most of the time, such silence suffices.

Scotch is generously poured in elegant glasses. They drink it in silence, of course. Why wouldn't they? They've got nothing to say, right?

They cast furtive looks at each other, then look away. Then they lay their eyes on each other again. Their eyes speak volumes and yet nothing is said. They glance, they drink, they think, they enjoy each other's company. But they don't say a word. In a sense… they don't even have to. They just know.

She bites her bottom lip as muses on a lot of things. Her blue eyes dance slowly and carefully between him, the content of her glass and more specifically all over the ice cube that is drowning in it. The sound the ice cube makes when it rocks against the glass as she plays with it, is the only thing that breaks that silence.

He stares, he's done being careful. No more furtive looks.

She notices his defiance and stares back. She's challenging him too. She has done this time and time again. She has been doing it for years. So has he. But nothing ever changes.

They always get back to the silence they apparently prefer to endlessly dwell in. Well, they do not get back to it per se, because they just stay grounded there all along. They grew roots and stayed there as if all hell would break loose if they ever open their mouths and voice how they really feel. In fact, they are truly convinced that all hell will indeed break loose if they do. So they don't. They just keep everything to themselves. Always. No matter what. But they know better.

When will it be enough? When it's much too late to do anything about it? Or when one of them breaks? Really breaks.

They know the answers to those unspoken questions oh too well.


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Thanks for the reviews, the alerts, the creepers... love 'em all. Also, even though this story was not pre-beta-ed by anyone and therefore all mistakes are mine, Miss Pjstillnoon did me the favour of pointing out 3 typos and 3 grammos on chapts 2 and 3 -gotta love her constructive criticism-, so now they are all cool if you care for a re-reading session. Just saying... Now, back to callian rambling tiems... go!_

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The shadows in his office start creeping in as the sun sets in DC.

She stands up from the brown leather armchair she is so fond of and announces she's heading home.

He removes his feet from his desk and stands up. His steps are heavy. As if he is carrying a terrible burden.

She smooths her skirt. Her very straight back and shoulders show strength, she looks taller than she is when she stands like that. He loves that about her. He loves a lot of other things about her too.

She heads for the door. The sound of her purposeful and rather rapid footsteps fill the room. She works those heels in a way only she knows how. Those heels are so high they would even look tacky on any other woman, but she makes them look sexy and classy. He reckons that is not the stilettos that make a woman look sexy, but the other way around. Especially if Gillian is that woman. While he keeps musing on her stilettos and her slender legs, he watches her walk away for a few brief moments and then follows her suit across the hall and into her office. He's just a few steps behind. She knows. He always is.

Her husband calls her and she tells him to wait for her outside.

He takes this as his queue to leave.

He had assumed, earlier that they were going to ride the elevator together, as usual. Descend on the ground floor's parking lot as usual and that he was going to walk her to her car, chit chat a bit more maybe… trying to postpone her departure a little longer, again, as usual.

Then he was going to get in his car that was usually parked in the spot next to hers and after that he was going to drive himself home, trying to decipher the name of the perfume she was wearing that day. Once he crossed his doorway he was going to act as if none of that would have ever happened and kiss his wife and little child and have dinner and watch some TV, preferably a movie or a documentary. Maybe read some books as well. Then he was going to try very very hard to fall asleep and not dream about her.

Perhaps, he would even pretend to make love to his wife if she initiated it or he would sometimes take the first step himself, just to exorcise his demons and chase away some fantasies that had assaulted him during the day. He figured that if he acted them out with Zoe, they were going to go away.

Well, all of his assumptions were wrong. He picks up on that by the time he hears the words: 'Yes, honey...' coming out of her lips. He also heard those words crashing into the empty space between them and being shattered into pieces.

He starts to exit her office thinking he might take a cab to the nearest pub and drink himself to stupor.

She leaves with her husband. She decides to leave her car there and ride with her beloved husband to the new Greek restaurant that is just ten minutes away. More like, her husband decides that for her, disguising it as a lovely invitation to a romantic night out and she obliges. As she is on the phone planning the rest of her evening she runs her hand oh so softly on her neck and then on the back of her neck and then hangs up and sighs.

By the time she turns around he is almost out the door, waiving goodbye.

Her gentle voice lingers in the seven thirty pm air: "Goodbye, Cal. See you tomorrow."


	5. Chapter 5

After a long night of drinking flammable beverages and screwing anything that moves, he stumbles his way into his bedroom. He doesn't even bother taking his clothes off. He falls on his bed like a stone, an awfully drunken stone. He lays on his stomach and passes out. He replays this scene entirely too often, lately.

Over five hours later, he feels her delicate touch on his cheek. She is trying to wake him up. Carefully. Very carefully.

He groans and opens just one eye. He sees her stunning image bathed in sunlight and then buries his face back in the pillow, this time completely, not even a sneaky eye escapes the pillow.

She pats his head. Smooths his hair and with the sweetest tone of voice tells him that it's time to get up.

He ignores her and groans again.

"C'mon Cal, get up. Please. Shower." She whispers softly in his ear, trying to keep him from falling asleep again.

"Does that mean what I think it means, love?" His husky voice sounds utterly sexy and inviting, exactly as he intends it to sound.

"No."

"Then my answer is no, as well, darling. Get lost."

She manhandles him. She manages to pull him on his feet and almost carries him to the restroom with minimum cooperation on his behalf. He rambles intelligible complaints.

She tells him that he should shave. He simply and directly asks her: "Why?"

"Why don't you let the mirror answer that one?" She sounds firm, yet kind.

"Zoe preferred the beard off or barely there. I stopped shaving altogether since she left. I don't see the point now…"

"Cal, that was last month. Please, if you don't want to do it for yourself or for the clients please, do it for me. If you wouldn't look as …-she struggles to find the right word- as… homeless as you do, I wouldn't ask you to shower and shave. I wouldn't be begging of you and dragging you all the way to the bathroom, for the seventh time this month, just so you find it in you to take a shower and shave that... bush off of your face."

"Well, thank you for that, love. You look like a million bucks yourself."

"I wouldn't say a million... more like two hundred and fifty thousand, maybe?"

That witty little retort and that playful tone of hers, are rewarded by a nearly imperceptible chuckle and a smile. A smile she finds extremely endearing. She smiles back and leaves him alone to mind his own cleansing business.

About thirty minutes later, his painful hangover has remarkably dissipated. At least on the outside.

He emerges from the bathroom looking decent enough to pass as Dr. Cal Lightman, world's leading deception expert and co-founder of The Lightman Group. He also looks sexy as hell in a white Egyptian cotton robe and sporting a rather messy wet hair.

He smells like soap, shampoo, aftershave and relief. Relief becomes him. The absence of beard and the relaxed expression he now displays with every breath he takes, make him look like ten years younger.

When she hears his footsteps approaching her, she turns around and walks to him. She walks the distance feeling pulled by his presence, as if she is helplessly gravitating towards him. They meet face to face. They stand just a couple of steps from each other. He can clearly see how her breath gets caught in her throat, how her flushed cheeks turn rosier by the second. He studies her. Her eyes are eager, like demanding to see what's underneath the robe. He can see desire written all over her features. He can also see how badly she tries to hide it all. That's just the beginning of all he can see in her. Just the tip of the iceberg. And is not the first time he sees it. Neither will it be the last one.

He wonders if it was that obvious for Zoe too. If she could tell as well as he did, the effect he sometimes had on Gillian. He is totally aware by now that Zoe knew exactly what the effect Gillian Foster had on him was. She made that very clear several times during the massive screaming matches they had prior to her irrevocable decision to leave and not come back, taking Emily with her. Their divorce was a time bomb, which was set off the day he walked into Gillian's office at the Pentagon for the first time. It had to blow up eventually…


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: Ok you beautiful ppl. The time has come for me to put you out of your misery. Here's the last chapt. Do as you please._

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"No, that's not true."

"I think you are not in the position of telling me what is true or not anymore."

"I want a divorce." She sounds determined, very much so, but there are those tears again; she can't seem to fight them back. She can't stop them.

He looks at her as if she was a complete stranger. She can see him wondering who the hell is that woman standing in front of him? She can see that bracing question as clear as the offensive sunny day outside, all over his disgusted face. She feels slapped.

"You got it." Hate and poison run through his veins. He thinks and feels that she has led him to this point. She and that English, arrogant, smart ass, bastard have led him to this point. His lowest point. He despises them both.

Now she feels kicked in the gut and then shot right in the center of her chest. At this point her tears are still streaming freely down her face but even more profusely then before. Her porcelain skin glows because of those bitter and burning tears and she chokes on them. All the while, all she can think about is: _'How did this happen?' _

She wonders over and over, unrelentingly, how she got to this point? And that merciless little voice, deep inside her head that echoes all the way down to her heart and that she has been trying to deny for so long, replies: _'You did this to yourself, Gillian. Alec didn't do it. It was you all along. You and him. It's always been him, it's always been Cal. Be honest Gillian. If not with Alec, with yourself… Alec never stood a chance since Cal came into your life. This was bound to happen. Now go.'_

The rest… is history.

Fin?

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_A/N: There was no beta this time around, like I said before -on C4 I think-. All mistakes and hopefully all the killers were mine. Haters to the left, crippers to the right, fans front and center please, no pictures though. Lol! Constructive criticism is always well received by yours truly, but watch the tone ;) Un-constructive criticism is dealt with. What you gonna do?... And creepers are cool, you guys can join my party if __you __want to, I won't bite. Thanks for reading guys, I really appreciate it. This story had way more fave alerts than actual reviews so far and believe me when I say that I enjoyed each and every one of those alerts as much as I dug the lovely reviews. So, I guess this is it. Read you around and probably review you as well..._

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